Luca Guadagnino’s film is a sensual and overwhelming celebration of love
Some films don’t need special effects because the story they have to tell is one of a kind: that’s the case of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name. The film is a coming-of-age drama and it got 4 nominations at the Oscars: Best Motion Picture. Actor in a Leading Role, Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song.
Set in the early 1980s, in Lombardy, Call Me By Your Name is an adaptation of Andre Aciman novel of the same name and it tells the love story between a teenager and a young man: Elio and Oliver.
Elio is seventeen and he comes from an educated and polyglot family: his father, Mr. Pearlman, is a professor of archeology that every summer invites a recent grad student (to assist in his research) to his old vacation villa. While he and his wife, Annella, enjoy the company of their guests, Elio is annoyed by the idea. In the summer of 1983, a new guest arrives: his name is Oliver, he’s american and he’s handsome. Elio looks at Oliver with curiosity and a bit of complaint, especially when he is asked to leave his bedroom to him.
Hanging out together is a formality to them, but slowly Elio starts enjoying Oliver’s presence. One night, the two go dancing with some friends: when Elio sees the young man kissing a girl on the dance floor, something bothers him. It will take a while to understand what it is. Looking for distractions, he starts dating his friend Marzia: he likes her, but he’s not happy. Some subtle signals arrive from Oliver, Elio recognize them and that’s when something starts taking shape on the screen: at first it’s a glance, then an accidental touch, finally a kiss. Elio and Oliver surrender to their feelings and, for a while, the teenager forgets that Oliver has to go back home.
Confining this film to “a gay story” is unfair and reductive. Maybe for the first time in cinema, Luca Guadagnino goes beyond that definition: Call Me By Your Name is above all a love story and a journey to adulthood. It’s also a celebration of enthusiasm, passion and agony as we felt them in our adolescence. The power of those feelings is something anyone can relate to, no matter your age or sexual orientation.
James Ivory’s screenplay is a triumph of multilingualism, culture and passionate lines; Luca Guadagnino is a poet of love and absence: his camera follows Elio and Oliver, it rejoices and suffers with them. The actors give body and soul to their characters: Michael Stuhlbarg is Mr. Pearlman and the conversation he has with his son, in the final part of the film, is hard to forget; Armie hammer is a charming and convincing Oliver. But the revelation of Call Me By Your Name is Timothée Chalamet, who plays Elio: by the end of the film, his memories become your memories and his pain becomes your pain.
